Taking A Chance On God

Taking a Chance on God explores how lesbians and gay men can claim both a positive gay identity and a fulfilling life of Christian faith. From the Trade Paperback edition.

2014 Christy Award winner! Darek Christiansen is almost a dream bachelor—oldest son in the large Christiansen clan, heir to their historic Evergreen Lake Resort, and doting father. But he’s also wounded and angry since the tragic death of his wife, Felicity. No woman in Deep Haven dares come near. New assistant county attorney Ivy Madison simply doesn’t know any better when she bids on Darek at the charity auction. Nor does she know that when she crafted a plea bargain three years ago to keep Jensen Atwood out of jail and in Deep Haven fulfilling community service, she was releasing the man responsible for Felicity’s death. All Ivy knows is that the Christiansens feel like the family she’s always longed for. And once she gets past Darek’s tough exterior, she finds a man she could spend the rest of her life with. Which scares her almost as much as Darek learning of her involvement in his wife’s case. Caught between new love and old grudges, Darek must decide if he can set aside the past for a future with Ivy—a future more and more at risk as an approaching wildfire threatens to wipe out the Christiansen resort and Deep Haven itself.

Bestselling author of Geography of Bliss returns with this funny, illuminating chronicle of a globe-spanning spiritual quest to find a faith that fits. When a health scare puts him in the hospital, Eric Weiner-an agnostic by default-finds himself tangling with an unexpected question, posed to him by a well-meaning nurse. "Have you found your God yet?" The thought of it nags him, and prods him-and ultimately launches him on a far-flung journey to do just that. Weiner, a longtime "spiritual voyeur" and inveterate traveler, realizes that while he has been privy to a wide range of religious practices, he's never seriously considered these concepts in his own life. Face to face with his own mortality, and spurred on by the question of what spiritual principles to impart to his young daughter, he decides to correct this omission, undertaking a worldwide exploration of religions and hoping to come, if he can, to a personal understanding of the divine. The journey that results is rich in insight, humor, and heart. Willing to do anything to better understand faith, and to find the god or gods that speak to him, he travels to Nepal, where he meditates with Tibetan lamas and a guy named Wayne. He sojourns to Turkey, where he whirls (not so well, as it turns out) with Sufi dervishes. He heads to China, where he attempts to unblock his chi; to Israel, where he studies Kabbalah, sans Madonna; and to Las Vegas, where he has a close encounter with Raelians (followers of the world's largest UFO-based religion). At each stop along the way, Weiner tackles our most pressing spiritual questions: Where do we come from? What happens when we die? How should we live our lives? Where do all the missing socks go? With his trademark wit and warmth, he leaves no stone unturned. At a time when more Americans than ever are choosing a new faith, and when spiritual questions loom large in the modern age, Man Seeks God presents a perspective on religion that is sure to delight, inspire, and entertain.

"It is exciting to reflect upon the potential that this imposing body of qualitative and quantitative research has for bringing about healing relationships among people at the deepest level. The authors have done the scientific and religious world a great service in probing beneath the surface of life to give us a new and fresh insight into the action and presence of God in human existence." George Gallup, Jr.

A Charge to Change is about empowering individuals with hope when faced with difficult changes that they face from time to time. This book will give spiritual references to apply to situations that seem hard as well as impossible while encouraging every individual to dig deep inside and change the perspective of ones mind into a positive and confident mind-set. A Charge to Change will bring a truth that changes are sometimes hard to deal with, but you will learn to find your strength during some of the changes that appear. I want every reader to know that there is definitely power on the inside, but it has to be tapped into in order to work.

Normally, we hear the call and the command to come in out of the rain. This devotional is an invitation and an incentive to get out in the rain to get drenched with these drops of devotions. Rain is not from the sea, but from the sky. Rain is not drawn from the faucet into the sink, but it falls from the sky. Rain is not from the ground, but from God. These raindrop devotionals are written to wet you with the Word, soak you with the Scripture, and mizzle you with the message. These raindrops are relevant, revealing, and reaching. So, let down your umbrella and let this rain drop in your walk, work, witness, worship, and week.

In this "brave and good book which shatters bad myths" (Commonweal), McNeill shows that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality, and argues that the Church must not continue its homophobic practices. From the Trade Paperback edition.